Panic!

“We’re taking a hell of a lot of chances.”

“At this point, that’s the name of the game.”

“Harry, this is no goddamn game!”

Vollyer turned his head slowly and looked at Di Parma. “Shut up, Livio,” he said softly.

Di Parma could not see Vollyer’s eyes behind the smoky lens of the sunglasses, but the set of his mouth was hard and white. Harry was wound up tight, that was for sure. He’d never seen him wound up this tight before. His own guts were roped into a knot, because even if he didn’t like to admit it to himself, he was afraid of Vollyer. He had heard stories about what Harry was like when he was strung out, and they weren’t stories you liked to hear about your partner. If he got Harry down on him, he was begging for trouble he might not be able to handle. The thing for him to do was to go along with Vollyer, whether he liked it or not—to trust him as he had in the past. Harry would snap out of it pretty soon; you didn’t stay on top in this kind of business for twenty-five years by making the wrong moves. But this whole assignment had turned into a bummer, and there was no telling what would happen next when the luck was running sour. He had to get out of this, for Jean’s sake; she could never know what he really did for a living, never. She thought he was a salesman for farm tools. He hated lying to her, but it was the only way, she would never have understood—

Vollyer caught his arm. “Sports car,” he said.

Di Parma looked along the road, and the machine was nearing them rapidly. It was a sleek yellow Triumph with New York plates; the dust cloud billowed out behind it like a gigantic dun-colored parachute attached by invisible wires. Di Parma squinted against the glare of the sun, and he could see two people inside, a woman driving and the passenger a man sitting hunched forward on the seat.

The Triumph drew parallel to them, and Vollyer and Di Parma were far enough away and at enough of an angle to be able to look through the open window on the passenger side. They saw the dust-streaked, sunburned face of the man, saw it clearly, and it was the same face smiling out from the portrait photograph in Vollyer’s pocket—it was him, Lennox, the witness. Di Parma, staring, was incredulous. Harry had been right, he had been backing a winner after all. Jesus, the guy had come straight across the desert and hit this road ...

Vollyer reacted instantly at the moment of recognition. He pulled off his sunglasses and gained his knees, turning slightly, planting his left foot at an angle out from his body to brace himself. He extended his left arm, crooked horizontally, and rested the long barrel of the Remington on his forearm, squinting through the Bushnell scope. The Triumph was pulling away, fifty yards beyond them, and Di Parma sucked in his breath, watching Vollyer, thinking: Squeeze off, squeeze off, Harry, for Christ’s sake!

Vollyer waited a moment longer. And fired.

Again.

Rolling echoes of sound fragmented the brittle late-afternoon stillness. Di Parma saw a hole appear in the dusty plastic of the Triumph’s rear window, saw the spurt of air and dust as the left rear tire blew. The little car began to yaw suddenly, its rear end snapping around, and Di Parma thought for an instant that it was going to roll. But it remained upright, plunging off the road on their side, hurtling through thick clumps of creosote bush, skidding sideways as the girl fought the wheel and the locked brakes, tilting, rear end folding in on itself as it slammed into a chunk of granite, caroming off, a second tire blowing now, driver’s door scraping another boulder, front end fishtailing again to point at still another outcropping, meeting it with a glancing blow and finally coming to a shuddering halt better than a hundred yards off the road.

Vollyer was already halfway down the slope, not looking back. Di Parma scrambled after him, and there was elation soaring through him. We’re all right! he thought. We’re going to come out of it just fine, Jean baby, I’ll be home in the morning...

Thirteen

Inside Lennox, the panic was a living, screaming entity.

It had been reborn the instant the angry, whistling pellet slashed through the rear window and imbedded itself in the dashboard, narrowly missing the girl. He had twisted in the seat and then the tire had blown and Jana had cried out, a keening sound that was a knife blade prodding the belly of the panic, enraging it, spiraling it out of control. The world spun and tilted crazily, and he felt himself thrown forward, felt sharp pain above his right eye as his head struck the windshield, felt blood flowing down to further distort the spinning montage outside the vehicle. Impact, grinding of metal, impact, the girl crying out again, impact, impact, and through it all the bright, hot panic clawing at the cells of his brain. He was not dazed, he was not confused. He knew what had happened, or the fear within him knew it; the equation was so very simple. They had found him: the killers had known about him all along and they had been looking for him and they had found him; he had no idea how, the how was not important, only the why was important and he knew the why.

Even before the car stopped moving, he was preparing flight.

And when it did stop, and the surrealistic movement became once again a motionless desert landscape, his hand was on the door handle, shoving it down, leaning his weight against it. Metal protested, binding, and he kicked at the door savagely, run, run, sweat commingling with the blood to half-blind him, and the girl was moaning words now, saying “My God, oh my God!” He looked at her—even with the panic he looked at her and she was the color of old snow, eyes glazed, still clinging to the wheel, repeating over and over, “My God, oh my God!”

Lennox kicked again at the door, and it gave finally and opened wide with a rending sound, run! and he was half out now, one foot on the ground, and his head jerked around, eyes searching through the dim red haze for the road, locating it. They were there, just as he had known they would be. Sunlight gleaming off metal extensions of their hands. Coming for him. Bringing death.

Run!

He levered his body up, supporting himself on the sprung door, and behind him the girl was still saying “Oh my God!” Suddenly, acutely, Lennox was fully aware of her. He looked at her, sitting rigidly in momentary shock, staring at nothing. Run, run, but something held him back, the girl held him back as if by some subconscious telepathy. He couldn’t leave her here, they would kill her, and even with the panic screaming there inside him, he couldn’t allow it to happen. He was responsible for her, he had gotten her into this, she was innocent. He had to take her with him. There was no inner debate, no real decision, it was simply a thing he was compelled to do.

Lennox reached back inside, and he had developed awesome strength. He locked his fingers on her arm and pulled her out of the seat, out from under the wheel, out of the car. She cried out in pain as a sharp edge of metal gashed her leg, and then he had her on her feet and he was staggering away from the car, half-dragging her behind, feeling her resist in spite of her shock and refusing to yield, dimly hearing her moan something at him but listening only to the shrill, clear voice of the panic now.

Into the rocks, near-falling, gasping, and a long way off a dull cracking sound, and another, and he knew they were shooting without really knowing it—keep moving, dodging, hang onto the girl, get away, get away, escape, fear shriveling his groin, fear gagging his throat, fear clamped onto his brain like a parasitic slug. And through the numbing wash of terror, a disjointed and yet intense feeling that it had always been this way for him, that his entire life had been one headlong flight; but like a wild thing in a wheel, he had never really escaped anything and never really would—and like that same wild thing, he would die running blind and running scared without ever having stopped running for even a little while ...

Fourteen

Di Parma raised his arm and fired a third shot from the reloaded .38, but Lennox and the girl had vanished into the jagged mosaic of rocks. Vollyer yelled at him, “Save your ammunition! Think, Livio, think!”

He was a few steps ahead and to one side of Di Parma as they passed the damaged Triumph and plunged into the rocks. In his right hand was the other belly gun; the Remington was tucked into the waistband of his trousers now. It was only a two-shot, and the rest of the ammunition he had brought for it was in the case under the Buick’s front seat.

Pinnacles and arches and knobs jutted up from the sandy earth on all sides of them, and there were sharp- thorned cacti and thick growths of mesquite. They fanned out, probing the terrain with slitted eyes, but there were